“The course was a paradigm shift for me,” said Jonathan Sedlak, a Milwaukee electrical contractor who attended Theopolis’s course on Revelation. “I am left with a book that is far more practical than it has ever seemed before.”
Jonathan Anderson of Louisville, Kentucky found the course “refreshing.” “I finished with a renewed delight for God’s Word and desire to teach it to others,” Anderson said.
Sedlak and Anderson were among a dozen students who gathered at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham for the 2015 Easter Term intensive, on March 16-20, 2015. The class included pastors, missionaries, and laymen from eight states and several denominations.
Theopolis President Peter Leithart gave a survey of current scholarship on Revelation, and explored themes of worship, martyrdom, and politics in the book. Scholar-in-Residence James Jordan lectured on the Old Testament background to Revelation, and presented a detailed overview.
Each day’s work was punctuated with worship, Matins to begin the day, Sext before lunch, and Vespers to close the day. Students ate breakfast and lunch together, and during lunch a student read a selection from the church fathers.
Certificate students engaged in lively seminar discussions each afternoon, and were tested at the end of the week on their knowledge of the book’s contents.
For David Cooper, a financial planner in Lynchburg, Virginia, the Old Testament portions of the course were important. “Instead of Josephus or Fox News,” Cooper said, “we learned to interpret the symbolism in the Apocalypse from studying the days of creation in Genesis, the Tabernacle and Priesthood of Exodus and John’s prophetic forebears.”
Clint Hail works with e3 Partners, a Dallas-based mission organization. Hail said he had overlooked Revelation’s importance to Christian life. He went away impressed at how the book “orients the Christian imagination toward faithful witness amidst an idolatrous world.”
The liturgies during the week stuck with Pastor Gregg Strawbridge of All Saints Church, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. “The sounds and tunes and words are resounding in my head like a nagging pop song,” Strawbridge said.
Adam McIntosh, who serves as a pastoral assistant in Carbondale, Illinois, observed that the liturgies were integral to understanding the book. The course “put Revelation into practice by structuring each day to a liturgical pattern. Only in the sanctuary do we begin to see clearly.”
“It was a very successful week,” Leithart said. “The students were informed and enthusiastically engaged.”
Theopolis’s Pentecost Term intensive course on “Music in Liturgy and Life” will take place Mary 18-22. Registration is open now open.
(Photo taken in the Andrew Gerow Hodges Chapel at Beeson Divinity School, Birmingham, Alabama, with the permission of the Divinity School.)